


The 12 Days of Jersey IV

by alemara, wanderlustlover



Series: 12 Days of Jersey [4]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Christmas, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, New Jersey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-09 04:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5524616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alemara/pseuds/alemara, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting on Christmas morning Laura and Amanda will be bringing you The 12 Days of Jersey IV. A 100-word prompt every morning and evening for the 12 Days of Christmas (December 25th, 2015 to January 5th, 2016) detailing Christmas in Jersey, across several years.</p><p> </p><p>If you need a refresher, you can find Year One   <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/607129">here</a>, Year Two <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1090878">here</a>, and Year Three <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2847569">here</a>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Soon the Bells Will Start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alemara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alemara/gifts), [wanderlustlover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** On the first day of Christmas  
>  **Song:** _It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas_  
>  **Year:** The Third

“Look, Gramma, flowers!” Grace squeals while Danny rolls his eyes and pushes the back of her jacket, cutting in with, “Hey, hey, what happened to our 'Merry Christmas' plan?”

It’s fuss and fluff when he’s smiling broad as his Ma pushes the door open, taking the flowers, hugging and kissing Grace, saying, “And aren’t they beautiful? And almost as big as you,” before she’s to him, eyes twinkling, cheek kissing, “Merry Christmas, Daniel.”

Before grabbing Steve’s scarf next, to pull him down for the same. “You could forgo the flowers one year, and just be a foot or two shorter.”


	2. cuddly as a cactus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Bah Humbug, Mister Scrooge  
>  **Song:**   _You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch_  
>  **Year:** The fifth.

“Turn it off.”

Steve sneaks a glance to the side, where Danny looks like a water heater about to blow. (He never can resist.) Turns the volume loud enough he almost can’t hear Danny’s teeth grinding. “I like this song.”

“Nobody likes this song.”

“I do. And so do you.”

A stabbing finger. “Incorrect. I like _one specific version_ of this song. The _classic_ , okay? The _original_.”

“This is someone’s classic.”

Grumbled, “This is some music exec’s bad idea.” A glare across. “Stop _smiling,_ drive, already.”

Steve flicks on the blinker, unfazed and amused. “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.”


	3. can't remember how I'm kin to them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Hallmark Movies  
>  **Song:** _Merry Christmas From the Family_  
>  **Year:** The First  
>  (Previous to reveal, somewhere before [let your heart be light](http://archiveofourown.org/works/607129/chapters/1117823))

“Danny _loves_ them.” That smirk is blindingly familiar.  
The eyes, hair, humor and ruthlessness. Except younger. A woman. 

“I do not. That’s all you ingrates, torturing the rest of it.”

“You just happen to have to be the room anytime they’re on, making wistful sighing noises?”

“Now I know you’re still delusional.”

Stella made exaggerated kissy faces, right until a pillow hit her. 

“What happened to violence is never best course of action?“ Steve laughed. 

“That’s for you.” Danny slid Steve a look, hand on another pillow.   
“They don’t count. They’re family. You don’t either if you take their side.”


	4. next year I'll be good, just wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Letters to Santa  
>  **Song:**   _I Ain't Gettin' Nuttin' For Christmas_  
>  **Year:** The seventh

“Hey buddy,” from Danny, sitting with his mother and Steve. Charlie rubs at his eyes, blinks them open, bleary and blue. “Ready to go see Santa?”

A nod, nudging Danny’s knee, until he hoists Charlie onto his lap. “Maybe we can drop off that letter you wrote, huh?”

“I mailed it,” Charlie says, unconcerned.

“You –“

Steve’s frozen, cup halfway lifted. Danny feels a glimmer of panic. “Well, what was in it?”

Charlie half-turns, disapproving. “Is –” Determinedly focused, an air of finality: “ _classfied_ , Danno.”

Leaving Danny and Steve to stare at each other, helpless, as Clara dissolves into laughter.


	5. love and joy come to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** New Traditions  
>  **Song:** _Here We Come A-Wassailing_  
>  **Year:** Third

“Remember to be good and maybe you—“ Steve stiffens, voice catching, at arms circling his toweled waist, a kiss between his shoulder blades. He relaxes from not seeing Danny coming, picking back up. “—Maybe you’ll get what you asked for tomorrow morning.” 

“Yeah, I love you, too, kiddo. Tell your mom and Gramma Deb that for me, too.” 

“Marshmallow,” Danny says, when Steve is turning to face him, rolling his eyes but smiling just sheepishly enough. Like he’d been caught. “Shut up.” 

Danny does, but only because he reaches up to drag Steve’s face down to kiss him.


	6. I know that I should be sleeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Charlie's first Jersey Christmas  
>  **Song:**   _Donde esta Santa Claus?_  
>  **Year:** The sixth.

It’s a small sound that makes Danny pause in the hall: a short, thick breath, snuffled through a stuffy nose, from the quiet dark room where Charlie is supposed to be sleeping. 

“Hey, kiddo. Still up?” 

Charlie shrugs, and Danny frowns, comes in the room. “Homesick?” The mattress dips under him, springs groaning. “That’s okay.”

A sniffle, but attentive. Danny leans close, points out the window. “Maybe we can leave Santa a note to bring with him when he stops by Honolulu: ‘Wish you were here.’”

A small, watery smile, and Danny leans to nudge shoulders. “I miss it, too.”


	7. we're running mad with Christmas cheer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** The best thing about Jersey  
>  **Song:** _The Christmas Can-Can_  
>  **Year:** Fifth

Grace has tinsel in her hair, and the ghost of chocolate powder on her cheek, but when her father spins her around to the newest song being sung, they don’t notice. The same way Danny's hair has been mussed up entirely, from siblings and children, but forgotten. 

Everyone laughing and clapping, while Danny grins and Grace blushes, laughing, herself, both of them lost and found.  
No weight, or shadows, just caught up in the moment. The season. Family. Happiness.  
This is why Steve strong-arms Danny back each year.

 

This and how they smile when they both drag him out next, to everyone’s loud cheering.


	8. when loved ones are near

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** The Most Wonderful Time of the Year  
>  **Song:**   _It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year_  
>  **Year:** The third.

Flights are delayed, canceled, re-routed. Tempers are shortened (Steve’s) or lost entirely (Danny’s), but, eventually, wheels touch down in Newark. Sometimes someone is waiting – more times, they’re stuck in traffic.

Hugs in the entryway of the Williams’ home turn into stubborn arguments in the kitchen, and Danny pacing in the bedroom, swearing off travel, family, and holidays altogether, while Steve sits on the bed and waits it out. 

But it works. And Christmas Eve, and morning arrive, with snow, and lights, and presents with bows. And when they leave, Danny lingers, hugs in the entryway, and promises to be back.


	9. the weather outside is frightful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** A cure for hypothermia  
>  **Song:** _Let it snow_  
>  **Year:** Fourth

"Co'd."

“Alpha-Bravo. Not yet.” 

The tiny head shook, tiny fingers digging a puffy jacket. “Co’d.”

“Oh.” A small word, with a look around the yard of caving snow forts, children in snowball fights, but not any of the other adults. Steve swooped down, picking up the kid, tiny shivers and an icy nose pressed into his neck with odd, but absolute, familiarity. 

“Brr,” Steve joked, broadly over shiver-shaking large shoulders and making a face that set Charlie giggling, turning toward the door as it opened. 

Danny and Clara walking out together. 

Their conversation stopping, with familiar matching smiles there, too.


	10. gentle on the ear you whisper softly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Five Minutes Peace  
>  **Song:**   _Night of Silence_  
>  **Year:** The third.

The door closes, and the house is enveloped in silence.

Steve stands, shellshocked in the kitchen, braced and ready for another wave of Williams’, of the door opening again for forgotten keys, but it stays silent. 

Except, “Danny?”

Tentative, noticing the creaking floorboards for the first time, making his way carefully to the dim front room, and Danny, head back on the couch, eyes closed, saying, “Shhhhhhh,” but lifting an arm in invitation.

Leaving a spot just large enough for Steve, warm and close, while Danny breathes against him, the tree glows, and the night slows, ticks away, towards Christmas.


	11. He'll say: Are you married? We'll say: No man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** "So When's the Big Day" and other awkward personal questions from well-meaning family  
>  **Song:** _Winter Wonderland_  
>  **Year:** Across the years

“You plannin’ to sleep with my brother for free forever?” A sister asks loudly. Steve nearly dropping the tree he’s tying down.   
“I need your inseam, not to grope you. Can you stand still already?” Clara brandished the measuring tape. 

“Your parents never got divorced, right?” Steve freezes, but Danny distracted a niece pointing to another album photo.   
“No judgment, but close the door next time, okay? There are kids.” E-Train slides by, and Steve chokes on his coffee.

 

“You know he wouldn’t say no, right?”

The porch empty, but for falling snow, and Eddie. “That you both want this?”


	12. all the fun I've missed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Naughty or Nice  
>  **Song:** _Santa Baby_  
>  **Year:** The fourth.

“So how about you, Steve?” From Stella, eyes twinkling in a way Danny would describe as ‘vindictive.’ “Have you been a good boy this year?”

Casting Danny’s mind back: the grenades in the trunk, flashbangs under the passenger seat, suspects detained and – well – _coerced_.

Until Steve glances sidelong his way, with a funny little half smile, and he’s right back to this morning, muffling sounds into the pillow, praying the door was locked.

Heat rising in his face, until a boot knocks against his foot under the table, and Steve is saying, casually, “Must’ve been. I got everything I wanted.”


	13. he’s not the christmas angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** coal in a stocking  
>  **Song:** _The Krampus Comes Out Tonight_  
>  **Year:** Fourth

“It couldn’t be for every car near you—“ 

“—or the proper way to slice up the ice—”

“—the rules or right way to play any game that ever existed—“ 

“You should just shove it in your mouth and do everyone a peaceful Christmas solid,” Steve snarks, innocent-smug, elbowing Danny over thigh-balancing his own stocking loot. 

Danny twists, gesturing with the coal chunk, low but audible mock-threat. “You shouldn’t talk, unless you never want a say in that again.”

“Daniel,” Clara gasps, hands over the ears of a baby in her lap, while everyone, herself included, snorts and laughs around them.


	14. give us a lamp to light the way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** A guiding star to show the way  
>  **Song:** _Beautiful Star of Bethlehem_  
>  **Year:** One

“They’ve lost their minds. I think they actually like you.”  
Steve snorted, “I’m sure you’ll tell them every reason they’re wrong soon.”

“Of course. Someone has to warn them not to let you on the roof ever again.”

 

 

Minutes passed, before, “They like you.”

 

Said like Danny wasn’t quite sure whether it was to Steve or himself.  
Leaving Steve to think about the tone as much as the words. 

Forgetting to answer, even if Danny didn’t.

“Did you pass out already?”

 

 

“That’s good, isn’t it?” 

Danny rolled his eyes, pushing in close.  
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good. I never doubted it.”


	15. I have no gift to bring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Christmas doesn't come from a store  
>  **Song:**   _Little Drummer Boy_  
>  **Year:** The third.

Grace frets, watching big-eyed as Steve unwraps carefully, holds her breath as he lifts it out. “I made it myself.”

It spins slowly on a thin red string: a small silver frame, three sunny faces – Danny, Grace, Steve – grinning out from the front, behind glass, sandy and damp and caught at the end of a day on the beach.

Until she can’t refrain any longer. “Do you like it?”

“Like it?”

Her fears melting away under the warmth of Steve’s hug, while she smiles into his shoulder and remembers she’s too big to crawl into his lap, now. “It’s perfect.”


	16. there's no place like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** An old-fashioned Christmas  
>  **Song:** _There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays_  
>  **Year:** One

Steve doesn’t see it coming. 

Not with how go, go, go he’s been about the whole thing. 

Since Danny announced it. His parents laughing, saying anything to get Danny back,  
that they were amazed he hadn’t brought Steve before, since Danny couldn’t shut up about him. 

He wasn’t expecting this somehow. This house with greenery swags, candles in the warm-glow windows,  
snow dusting everything. It looks perfect, holy, like those Cath or Freddie Christmas’s. Not his.

A freight train catching him in the chest. 

“Breathe, Superman.” Danny's hand finding Steve’s shoulder in passing before getting Grace’s car door. “We’ve got this.”


	17. I was following the pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Holiday Hoodlums  
>  **Song:**   _White Winter Hymnal_  
>  **Year:** The fifth.

Steve struggles from underneath the pack of shrieking children; glares, exasperated, at the door, where Danny leans. “Feel like helping?”

Danny sips peaceably at his steaming coffee. “You saying you need help, Superman? Need me to save you from a bunch of kids?”

“They’re –“ Steve slings a giggling, squirming cousin over his shoulder, “bigger than last year.”

“Seems like you got it under control.” A shrug. “And it’s cold out.”

He dodges a clump of snow flung his way, waves, while Steve trips into a drift, swearing, children cheering. “Some backup you are, Williams. I’m coming for you next.”


	18. ho ho ho, guess who's here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Secret Santa, H50 Style  
>  **Song:** __Ho! Ho! Ho! (Who'd Be A Turkey At Christmas)  
>  **Year:** First

“Another for Uncle Steve from Santa!” Grace called out. 

He’d already been snowed under in surprise that the William’s Families had put gifts out for him,  
but this was the third package from _“Santa”_. Santa without the name written. 

The first with a motorcycle sticker. Then, a tiny skeleton. This one, a surf board. 

“I wonder whoever this could be from,” Steve drawled looking at the sticker and back at his ‘Elf.’  
Until Danny, only a few inches away, smacked at Steve’s arm, looking none too innocent himself.  
“It’s not polite to interrogate Santa’s Helpers, even you must know that.”


	19. before their light the stars grew dim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Angels big and small  
>  **Song:** _The Huron Carol_  
>  **Year:** Charlie's First

This was never something Steve pictured. Not even once.  
Grace already over ten before this started. 

 

It was happening all the same. The bed was taken up entirely by Danny, fallen asleep with his loafers still on, and Charlie, who was curled up against Danny’s chest. Worn out from the day and half-hidden under a blanket. Perfect. Peaceful. Caught in the afternoon light. 

 

“Hey,” came rusty and low. 

 

Steve sat on the bedside, whispering. “Replacing me already?”

“Well, he is cuter—“

“Cuter than you, maybe. No. Definitely.” 

Danny rolled his eyes, but wrestled a hand free and Steve took it.


	20. Hawaii's way to say "Merry Christmas" to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Holiday Hibiscus  
>  **Song:**   _Mele Kelikimaka_  
>  **Year:** The fourth.

“It’s so pretty.”

“So _pink_.”

“Like a Hawaiian sunset!”

“It’s gorgeous,” Clara says, tugging Steve down by his sleeve to kiss one cheek and smartly pat the other with her palm. “Almost gorgeous enough to make up for being late.” 

Danny, shrugging off his coat, defensive. “You want to blame someone, blame America’s Navy.”

“Hmm.” A quirked brow. “And the wreath was their idea, too?”

“It’s blessed!” Grace adds, cheeks as pink as the hibiscus blossoms now hanging in the window. “For you and the house.”

Enveloped in a hug from her smiling grandmother, saying: “Well, I can feel it.”


	21. this Christmas I'm gonna risk it all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Families Within Families  
>  **Song:**   _Wrapped in Red_  
>  **Year:** The ninth.

It happens often enough that first Clara, then Stella, comments on it, quietly to Steve: Danny snapping at everything, everyone; one second stuck to Steve and Grace like a shadow, the next storming out of the room and the house to wander for hours in the icy night.

“It’s more than usual,” Stella says, and Clara nods, but Steve just thanks them, and waits up for Danny’s return, ghosts of Christmas’ past trailing at his ankles.

Only wrapping around him, in their bed, nose in Danny’s neck, voice low, reminding. That there’s no expiration date to be seen or feared.


	22. I see your smilin' face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** the magic of the season  
>  **Song:**   _What Christmas Means To Me_  
>  **Year:** The third.

They’re gathered around the computer screen, hair tousled, sock feet shifting, until the connection chimes, and a face fills the screen. Dark hair, dark eyes, neat uniform: she grins.

“Well, it’s official,” she says. “NAVSAT caught him just over the 49th parallel. He’s got a good tailwind, and the skies look pretty clear, so I’d say he’ll be over New Jersey in…just about three hours.”

The children shriek; Clara claps her hands, sends them off to bed, while Steve lingers, winks at the screen. “Thanks, Cath. Merry Christmas.”

Her smile no less brilliant for the miles between. “Merry Christmas, sailor.”


	23. in heavenly peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Christmas Eve, in the quiet late hours  
>  **Song:**   _Silent Night_  
>  **Year:** Every one.

In essence, it’s no different from their bed at home in Hawaii, except that it’s colder outside and there are more people in the house, but it always feels different. Enough that Danny, trying to pry unwilling eyelids open, tries to stay awake long enough to find a word for it, a reason.

How it feels like a held breath. How something in this warm dark is not just familiar and friendly, but holy. Steve breathing beside him. Grace, Charlie, hours from delight. The world, outside, hushed. 

All the blessings he falls asleep counting, instead of waves washing onto shore.


	24. Love be yours and love be mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** In the quiet before Christmas morning  
>  **Song:** _Love Came Down at Christmas_  
>  **Year:** Maye Fifth or Sixth

“Wake up.” Words warm, slow, half-thick with sleep, breathed against skin just as thick with it. Thicker yet, when it only earns a grumbling. 

“Wake up, Danno,” is insistent, morning dark, pressed to the shell of an ear. Carries on, “It’s Christmas.”

“--not yet…no one’s come…such a menace to--” buries itself in Steve’s clavicle, making Steve grin fiercely in the dark, hand finding the juncture of Danny’s neck and shoulders and rubbing.

“There’s coffee already, and the kids keep dashing the hall, and you don’t want to miss Charlie’s face when he sees everything for the first time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that I bid you a warm, heart-filled farewell from my own 12 Days of Jersey heart. These doors close softly behind us, leaving all of our favorite in the glory and bliss of the holiday, but know that I'll be dreaming of 12 Days of Jersey V all across this year in unexpected places like I always end up doing.
> 
> All my love, Amanda


End file.
